Gov't backs Green Growth Round Table
Cabinet creates cross-sector panel to facilitate formulation of green growth national plan
The government has decided to form a Green Growth Round Table, to bring about regulatory, budgetary and environmental policy changes between 2012 and 2020, an Environmental Ministry press release said.
The plan was presented by Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan and Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Shalom Simhon.
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The national plan was prompted by the OECD's Green Growth Declaration, signed in 2009: "Green growth is about maximizing economic growth and development while avoiding unsustainable pressure on the quality and quantity of natural assets.
"It is also about harnessing the growth potential that arises from transiting towards a green economy," an OECD statement said at the time.
A public appeal to organizations and experts from the business sector or the non-profit sector to take part in the national round table was first issued in October 2011.
The initiative will allow relevant stakeholders to "help shape and spearhead the transition to a green economy," the ministry's statement said. "It will seek to leverage the knowhow, experience and capacities accumulated in Israel… to develop new policy tools which will transform Israeli companies into world leaders in different fields."
The panel is required to submit its recommendations to the government within six months. The recommendations are expected to encompass a variety of economic and regulatory policy changes in the fields of green innovation, green production and green consumption.
Co-chairs for the government will be Attorney Alona Sheafer-Karo, director-general of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and Sharon Kedmi, director-general of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor; while Inter-Israel CEO Maxine Fassberg and Vice Naor Yerushalmi, of Life and Environment will represent the umbrella organization of environmental NGOs.
"The Ministry of Environmental Protection considers partnership with the different sectors to be all important," Sheafer-Karo said.
"The national action plan aims to lead Israel towards a fair, stable and clean economy and to improve the competitive ability of Israeli industry in the global market."
Kedmi added: "The work on green growth represents yet another aspect of the ministry's concern with environment and sustainable development, alongside such other aspects as the provision of assistance tools to Israeli industries for emissions reductions, connection to the natural gas system and other initiatives based on the understanding that Israeli industry should be incentivized to adopt sustainable economy standards."
